Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts celebrates its 25th anniversary this year by opening five new hotels - three in China, one in Sabah, Malaysia, and one in Yangon, Myanmar. The first will open this month in Beihai, China, on the southern coast, 50 minutes by air from Hong Kong, and will be linked eventually by a four-hour cruise across the Beibu Gulf to Halong, Vietnam. Special opening rates start at $90. General Manager Gilbert Jung said Beihai, famous for its pearls, is "rapidly becoming a vibrant tourism, trading and business hub."
Swissair will eliminate 1,200 more jobs from its payrolls, a cut of 3%, the carrier said yesterday. The latest layoffs are part of a plan to pare costs and further boost productivity. The airline, which currently employs 40,000 workers, said it is shooting to boost earnings by 500 million Swiss francs ($415 million) by 1998. The cuts will come by yearend, mostly through early retirement and from the elimination of administrative positions. They are in addition to 1,600 positions the carrier announced it would do away with in September.
Vacation Express will begin offering a summer tour package from Atlanta to Aruba April 7 on ALM Antillean Airlines. Children will stay, eat and play for free at 14 participating hotels. Packages start as low as $649 per person and include roundtrip air, seven nights stay, airport transfers and hotel taxes.
The Clinton administration yesterday proposed $8.253 billion for FAA in fiscal 1997 - up 1.2% from the fiscal 1996 enacted level - but the total would drop 0.6% from the fiscal 1996 level to $8.103 billion without $150 million in controversial proposed user fees. The administration is requesting authority in the DOT appropriations act for FAA to raise $150 million in offsetting collections to be used in fiscal 1997 to reduce general fund contribution to FAA.
Northwest said yesterday it will expand scheduled service to Asia July 1, including the first flight by a U.S. carrier to Jakarta, Indonesia. The Jakarta route, an extension of its Seattle-Osaka service, is allowed under the existing bilateral, Northwest said. It also will increase Minneapolis/St. Paul-Tokyo service to four weekly flights, through Sept. 30. Northwest said it will file applications with the Japanese and Indonesian governments and announce schedules and inaugural fares later.
Air New Zealand has signed a blocked-space, code-sharing agreement with German carrier LTU under which LTU will purchase seats on ANZ's three weekly Los Angeles-Frankfurt flights. The flights will carry the codes of both carriers. The initial agreement runs through Oct. 31. "Air New Zealand has flown to Frankfurt for nearly 10 years," ANZ said. "In recent times, quota restrictions have impacted our ability to optimize our flights during the northern summer.
The pitot tubes of a Birgenair 757 that crashed into the Atlantic last February shortly after takeoff from the Dominican Republic, killing all aboard, had been left uncovered for nearly two weeks, and indications are that one of the tubes became obstructed, a Dominican civil aviation official said. The aircraft was on the ground in a tropical climate from Jan. 23 until it took off on Feb. 6 carrying German tourists returning home. There was no indication the pitot tubes were checked for insects or other debris before the flight.
Calling FAA's policy statement on revenue diversion a "big disappointment," Air Transport Association President Carol Hallett said yesterday that airports and airlines should work together to "toughen up" the policy to protect the "closed-loop, self-financing" airport funding system. "Local politicians should not look to the airport's revenue stream as a quick fix to their problems.
AAI/Systems Management Inc. said it has added a solid-state ultrasonic wind sensor to its Next Generation Weather Observing System (Nexwos) sensor suite. The new sensor, built by Handar, replaces conventional "cup and vane" sensors. The company said the new sensors' solid-state design eliminates all moving parts, making the devices resistant to contamination and corrosion and eliminating maintenance required for older, mechanical- type sensors. "In fact, the mean time between failure of the ultrasonic sensor is calculated to be 26 years," the company said.
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association will announce March 26 at FAA's annual General Aviation Forecast Conference in Tampa, Fla., details of an effort to recruit 100,000 new pilots a year by 2000. FAA Administrator David Hinson has endorsed the program, according to Phil Boyer, AOPA president, and Edward Stimpson, GAMA president. The "GA Team 2000" program will involve efforts by manufacturers, consumers, publishers and other associations and aviation businesses, they said.
United Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against BAE Automated Systems charging that its automated baggage system at Denver Airport is not meeting contract standards. Also Monday, in a District Court in Dallas, BAE filed suit against United citing inability to reach agreement on the final payment - about $17.5 million - for the system. United is asking the court to find the system incomplete, airline spokesman Joe Hopkins told The DAILY. "We've declared them in default and terminated our contract.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers International Traffic Third Quarter 1995 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) American 4,143 11.44 2,217 9,185,097 Atlantic 1,138 6.57 4,080 4,643,461
AirTran Airways February traffic to 77.4 million revenue passenger miles from 17.5 million in February 1995. Capacity rose 297% to 122.1 million available seat miles, and the load factor gained 6.6 points to 63.4%. It carried 86,884 passengers, up 378%. AirTran began service in October 1994 with two aircraft serving five cities. It now operates 10 737s to 20 cities.
Continental has asked for authority to operate combination service between Newark and Dublin, Ireland; Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, under its code-share agreement with World Airways. Under the arrangement, Continental will place its designator code on World flights on the four routes as well as World's services between Newark and Shannon, Ireland, and Tel Aviv, beginning in June. Continental already has underlying authority for the latter two points.
AMR Services President Thomas Metzler, a 29-year veteran of AMR and American, is resigning to pursue other opportunities. Jim Gunn, currently VP-operations for Chicago O'Hare, will replace Metzler. In his career at American, Gunn was VP-central division, president of American Eagle Simmons Airlines and managing director-operations planning at the Dallas headquarters. Peggy Sterling, regional managing director-northeast operations, will fill Gunn's position. She has worked for American for 26 years, starting as a flight attendant.
Federal Express and Air Line Pilots Association negotiators have tentatively agreed on a five-year contract, the union's first collective bargaining agreement with the company. The contract, reached after two years of talks, would give 3,000 pilots at FedEx four pay increases over the five years, with additional increases linked to profitability. The two sides also agreed to work rule changes that will give the company flexibility and improved productivity, a scope clause and provisions related to current foreign flight operations.
Honeywell said service bulletins issued on its avionics, used by most of the world's airlines, are available from its World Wide Web site. Honeywell Air Transport Systems has brought on line more than 200 service bulletins dating back to last July and will add documents at the rate of several hundred a year. Two aircraft manufacturers and several airlines have received approval to access the secure, password-protected site.
Summary of U.S. Major Carriers Domestic Traffic Third Quarter 1995 Revenue Average Revenue Passengers Length of Passenger Enplaned % Travel Miles Carriers (000) Change (Miles) (000) America West 4,424 8.03 800 3,539,719 American 16,584 (7.19) 1,120 18,579,360
Aeroperu starts weekly Newark-Lima flights March 29 under a code-share pact with Mexicana. The service will be operated with a 156-seat A320. Continental began daily service in the market last week with a 757.
Iberia has started flying an A340 between Madrid and New York Kennedy Airport. The carrier, which will take delivery of three more A340s by the end of this year, also plans to use the jet on flights to Miami. The aircraft are configured for three classes of service. First class, which Iberia calls Grand Class, has 10 seats with 62 inches of pitch. Business class seats 24 passengers with 42 inches of pitch. Seats in both cabins have inflight satellite telephones, interactive video systems with 10 channels and video games.
A top FAA official said yesterday the agency has advised Wilcox Electric that the company's $475 million contract to develop the Wide Area Augmentation System is behind schedule, not meeting program goals and may be canceled.
After five months of trying to find slots, ValuJet said it will begin low- fare service to New York LaGuardia May 1 from its Atlanta base. Under an agreement with Continental, it will lease 10 slots at the airport and operate five daily flights with one-way fares starting at $89. The carrier earlier believed it had a deal to obtain TWA slots, but was told by TWA the 10 slots would be leased to Delta instead (DAILY, Nov. 21). ValuJet said it will continue to pursue antitrust claims filed in federal court against the carriers.
Kiwi International Air Lines set a new record in monthly passenger boardings in February when it flew 173,000 passengers, surpassing its previous record of 165,500 passengers in November 1995. Kiwi's February traffic jumped 63% from February 1995 to 129 million revenue passenger miles from 79 million. Available seat miles were up 44% to 201 million from 140 million. The load factor rose eight percentage points to 64%. Jerry Murphy, president and chief executive, said, "The harsh winter sparked Florida travel in February, a pattern that continues through March.
Qantas and British Airways have fused separate operations in Bangkok and Singapore into a single unit, the carriers said. The new office will conduct sales, marketing and operational activities for both airlines. When completed, the two carriers will share first- and business-class lounges that are under construction at both airports. The Singapore lounges open March 26.
